i n v i s i b l e s

s t a r

2012-02-26T18:38:00.002+01:00

Blueprints are so beautiful. Look at the soft, generous lines. I could see this as a big poster.

The facts are:

Slussen - The Lock - is about to get torn down. It's a meeting point of cars, buses, cyclists and pedestrians, connecting the island The Old Town with the island Södermalm in Sthlm, and it was built in the 30's.

A debate is roaring whether it should it be torn down and what should you do instead or could it be repaired? It's built on rotting wood from the 1600's, but to be fair I don't keep facts. I've passed this place for 20 years, and it's part of my personal history.

Reading the local paper, my heart skipped a beat:

"The epitome of elegance. 1958, more than 20 years after the opening of the new Slussen the environment surrounding Blå Bodarna (The Blue Shops, my translation) was much more attractive." - Louise Kristoffersson

Oh my. The dome at Blå Bodarna was once bedazzled - ! I didn't know this. When did they remove the pearls of light?

A frenzied treasure hunt began. Pearls!

Blå Bodarna then, when the world was still set in black and white...

...and today, in harsh colour.

As you can see the dome is robbed of stars. The few remaining shops aren't that classy, and everything is in a state of decline. Slussen is doomed.

I didn't take any photos of Slussen and Blå Bodarna, because I was certain google would be full of it, but it actually took some hunting.

More:

The ultimate Slussen project - City Heart from An Urban Anatomy. I've blogged about it before.
I've compared photos of Sthlm in the past and present here - Skanstull and Klara.

The photos - my own exempt - link to their original locations. Just click'em.
List of photos:
1. Blueprint of Slussen, 1930 års trafikkommitté i Teknisk Tidskrift, Wikipedia.
2 & 3. My own photos of photos of Mitt i Södermalm, Stockholms Stadsmuseum, 120221.
4. Stockholmskällan, Svenska Dagbladet, 1935 - 39, photographer not mentioned, Stockholms Stadsmuseum.

5. Stockholmskällan, Almberg & Preinitz, 1935 - 39, photographer not mentioned, Stockholms Stadsmuseum.

6. Stockholmskällan, Almberg & Preinitz, 1935 - 39, photographer not mentioned, Stockholms Stadsmuseum.

7. Stockholmskällan, Almberg & Preinitz, 1935 - 36, photographer not mentioned, Stockholms Stadsmuseum.

8. Det sanna Sverige - Folkhemmet i förfall, photographer Ulrik Hammarström, no year mentioned.
9. Dagens Nyheter, 2010, no photographer mentioned so I'll assume it's Lars Epstein.

10, 11 & 12. Slussen och jag, 2011, no photographer mentioned.

b r i c - à - b r a c o l a g e

2012-02-23T11:37:00.000+01:00

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Lately (besides asking myself where I've been or what I've done) I've worked on my portfolio. I'm exhausted. Doing stuff for yourself is tricky - and I think that is so stupid. On another day I'd say that the difficulty is that we've all possibilities before us and how to choose?

But I'm rethinking that. Are we in fact our own worst clients - bitch bosses that never know where to draw the line, who scold us relentlessly: It's not good enough! Creatively, I want to return to childhood and fantasy and play make our future. That's the way.

And in a way, I kinda like this bric-à-bracolage pic more than the real thing. Messy is sometimes good.
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f l y

2012-02-22T02:07:00.001+01:00

At night I go to one of my favourite dream places. It's always at a new location, but each time you must take the train. Then you walk.

Like the tracks in Spirited Away, it's a long, narrow, silvery strip of land. Here and there are shards of island, and beside that, there is the ocean. I love this place. It's among the most heartbreakingly beautiful I've seen.

Last night I was accompanied by some large silver blue lumps of monsters, a bit Totorolike - I know, I've given Studio Ghibli full control of my similes.

You see the middle window to the right in the last pic? My neighbour has bright green walls in the living room, and my heart skipped a beat and I thought to myself: Just like Almodóvar! (I've long since passed the "just like in the movies of..." bit.) But I know, you can barely see it here. Also, I'm thinking of leaving Pinterest after having read this article, and others like it - what do you think? Right or wrong?
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e n t e r . t h e . d r a g o n

2012-02-21T09:00:00.000+01:00

Hello blue weekend.

Beyond the love of friends and pet synthesizers and general goodness of life there is a dragon. Reality has started breaking up, little by little. There are bouts of memory loss, of not knowing where I'm going or even what I'm going to. Then there are the things I'm told I've done and said in unreasonable fits of anger, and that is the worst.

It seems I've begun entering a mode between dream and being awake - is it nightmare I mean? Unknowingly, I've fed a dragon. What do you do about it? Do you focus on the barrier between worlds or the substance of dream? Reality has always been a vague concept to me, but this is going too far, and in the wrong direction.

I read in an interview with Woody Harrelson: "I was in a taxi the other night, and we started talking about life and the taxi driver goes, 'Chaos and creativity go together. If you lose one per cent of your chaos, you lose your creativity.' I said that's the most brilliant thing I've heard. I needed to hear that years ago."

(Pair that with this worrying quote from The Iron Lady: "Watch your thoughts for they become words. Watch your words for they become actions. Watch your actions for they become... habits. Watch your habits, for they become your character. And watch your character, for it becomes your destiny! What we think we become." I like this quote, and oh how it bothers me with its exclusion of... the messiness of living.)

My instinct is to embrace the Woody snippet. But chaos, once you got it is a messy thing since it can contain anything, destruction included. Neil Gaiman described this condition well with his The Endless, I think. (The page I'm directing you to is so terrible, you'll probably want to chop my head off - which would solve my cunundrum.)

As with all nightmares, there is no clear point to this, so I'll just - stop here.

n i g h t . a t . t h e . m u e s u m

2012-02-19T14:38:00.000+01:00

A.V. looked me straight in the eye and said that he had once told an artist about an idea that he'd had that he cherished, that he needed to do but hadn't yet got done. One of those ideas that just might be brilliant.

The artist responded: If you haven't realized this idea in five years time, it belongs to me, and I'll do it.

And now, five years later he received the notification by mail. She has claimed it.

This exchange, brilliant as it is, is just a smidge of the museum - sorry, muesum - that this artist has built round the idea of retrieving other people's lost ideas: "From missing masterpieces to the unpublished, unfinished and undone. From the burned down Great Library of Alexandria to your lost socks."

Most of all I'd like to copy paste the whole text from The Muesum page and force feed it to you, because I like it so much and it's such a mind fuck (great combo, no?). But assuming you're not more monkey than me (surely you can't be) you're probably able bodied enough to navigate from here to there on your own. (If not, e-mail me, and I'll fax you an owl and a strawberry.)

"Here you may find the m{ }esum attendant, meticulously cataloging n∅bjects into the muesum archive or lovingly tending to your lost hats and scarves, to your lost trust in political systems, to the memory of a body, to your old ego, to your numerous lost telephones, to your future plans, to your lost cause, to your unfulfilled desires and to the answer that you never received."

This muesum is the best thing ever - unless it's your idea at stake. My friend will try to fight her claim. I so want to know what's next.

b l u e

2012-02-17T09:18:00.001+01:00

As usual I'm a muddle of reference and inspiration. My brain collects mind maps, like reflections upon reflections, of things once seen or thought. And I would like to tell you all about it, spare no detail of what once for a millisecond happened in the corner of my eye.

If I tell you to look at these pictures of The Little Prince and listen to this recording of Zorrino's and Maita's song* from Tintin and the Temple of the Sun, written by Jaques Brel - Säg är det sant / ska denna natt bli den sista / i Zorrinos unga liv? / Säg är det sant / att Zorrino ska mista / sitt unga liv när dagen åter gryr? - do you get what I'm looking for, or am I only being cheesy?

Then I add some more blue, blue pictures of the Sea of Decay from Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984)**:

Wednesday I clung to this mix of inspiration like thistles, trying to get my thoughts straight on my little movie script. It helped! Now I have an A4 paper with a story outline, ready to be broken down - built up? - into scenes and images. I'm quite excited - we're quite excited. This project - five women, five movies, five minutes each, one theme - must come to be!

What I was looking for in childhood records of Tintin, The Little Prince and Nausicaä is this feeling of being all alone on the moon, that no one or nothing can touch you even though you'd like to, that it's much too late. I know, I'm gloomy.

Happy weekend! This Friday has started out like shit, but I will it to get better. I will it to.

* I'm more inspired by the Swedish version, but it's not on YouTube - maybe I've found my calling there?

** More pics from Nausicaä here! My manga has finally arrived, but more on that later.

c a s t l e l e s s

2012-02-16T09:47:00.000+01:00

I took these photos mostly to document the heavy snow falling... You could say I failed right?

Looking at these photos makes me irrationally sad, I feel like a kid back from summer camp - and summer is over now that I'm back! They are from day three of script writing, and now we won't huddle up at our glorious dreamy mansion - well, Ida will, because it's her studio space, and Rebeca will too, because they'll share it - until March. That's worlds away.

Well, I'll go there today too, because we have a tiny meeting, but then. Worlds away.
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d a y . t w o ( o f . d r e a m i n g )

2012-02-14T18:07:00.000+01:00

Today I've moved backwards and doubted what I took for certain. No, not in life, but with my little movie project. We carry these images within and make plans for what place they will get, and then, as you dig in, you, well - things get complicated. And you question.

I don't want to sit in the dark with my mother and sister and know that I've caused them pain, even if my movie turns out well. So I move in circles and wrap things in and out to give them a new disguise. Maybe we can get as close to the core if we go sideways?

"Once upon a time there was a boy who was put to sea when his mother died. He sat in a small rowing boat attached to a distant shore, unable to get back to land, for a year. What did he see during those endless starry nights? He never said."

How will it end tomorrow?

a t . h o r n s g a t a n ( w h e r e . d r e a m s . a r e . m a d e )

2012-02-13T17:49:00.002+01:00

These are the luxurious days, when Ida, Rebeca and I sit together and write write write and dream of making movies. I take tedious tiny notes by hand, black on white, in hopes of getting to the place that existed before we learnt how to write a movie script correctly, and just wrote. I want to touch the commuter child who kept diary on the trains connecting suburb with city. I want to dream make a movie.

We snuggle up with tea and coffee and chocolate in the chill in what must have been the living room of a stately flat. Wedding decorators fill the space with pink magnolias that we secretly return to the hallway. The entire room smells heavy of rich old lady perfume, fur and pearls and cigarettes and eyeshadow, a woman I'm not sure exists. I connect her with round marble tables and black silk wallpapers, like in the bar Potemkin in Halle-am-Saale (where I know she doesn't exist).

The floors are white and wooden, the ceiling high, the sun filters through fume dusty windows. This flat is like a make belief Berlin, and I resort to old dreams in which when you'd open the door to your flat you could be anywhere in the world. The dream didn't include ever actually leaving the flat. Everything is at the expense of something other.

For two more days we'll sit and write. It'll be the best days. Film making can be such lonely business, and I thrive in the company of these women. Discussing dreams is most beneficial, and tomorrow I'll bring felt pens in the colours of the rainbow and white post-its and turn my dream into a jigsaw puzzle. I want this process to be as tactile and childish as possible. Lets be grown up another day.
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s m a l l . f l a t , b i g . i d e a s

2012-02-10T09:00:00.000+01:00

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The other evening I asked the Glenn: What do you like in interior design? He thought for a while and then said: Well... spaciousness.

That is kinda unfortunate since we live tiny - and had just ordered billions of 7" vinyl mailers (vinyl envelopes) and bought a bookshelf, that is much too big for our home. In other words, our living space was smaller than usual. That happens quite often.

Above you can see some bookshelf. We measured our walls and there was absolutely no space to fit it.

After a lot of discussions and measuring the Glenn stated: We'll put it in the kitchen. It's the only space.

Here's an old pic of our kitchen. It's long and narrow and tiny. In this pic it looks big in comparison to reality. We've had to take down that (tiny tiny) table since there wasn't enough space for two people to cook there, or even open all the cupboards.

We called our resident handyman mr Bobergotti, baked a cake and emptied the kitchen wall.

There were no progress shots taken - no space! - just non stop relentless action. When we were done, we had this:

Ta-daa! I wish I had saved the original add so you could see the bookshelf in its entirety. Our kitchen is much too small for that. The bookcase is like a big lounge - sauna - gillestuga wall with floating shelves, very sexy and very 60's, a chunk of jacaranda glory. Perfect for mixing your cocktails and chilling your champagne. Irresistible.

I'd found it by chance, looking for something other on Blocket (Swedish E-bay). A woman outside of Sthlm was selling her house and needed to have it taken down, and away. Her husband had died and she was moving to a flat. This bookshelf had been with them since the early 60's and moved with them from place to place.

Lets move in for some close ups.

Later I heard giggles, and discovered that the Glenn and Bobergotti had secretly begun decorating, using a collection of British sauces, Ryan Air cigarettes, whiskey flavoured condoms, vitamin D, a lid, a timer, garlic and a bottle of wine.

We ended up with jacaranda leftovers - and those are good leftovers!

I put a cupboard on top of a small 60's table, and it looked nice and strict (much better than in this pic, with plastic bag and nonsense). When I sell my grandfather's book cabinet, that is much too big for our flat (yes I know, my common sense comes and goes), this cupboard table combo is going to look so nice against that wall. I can't wait.
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a . f i r e p l a c e . o f . h i s . o w n

2012-02-08T09:50:00.000+01:00

Hello invisible friends,

I've decided I won't blog every day Monday - Friday. It's too much, my posts so long and winding - and I don't seem able to be brief or quick - ! So, from now on, there will be empty gaps at this space... I'm not going anywhere, I'll just sometimes be extra invisible.

This post goes to prove that I take the most photos when I'm alone...

Wednesday I had children's food for brunch*, and admired February's first snow. The whispers were right (or maybe it was my King Bore posts that did the trick?) because winter is here. The grey of winter - or rather the grey of no winter - has made me long for colour and magic and - and - and--- a never ending stream of Studio Ghibli snippets to brighten my day. Pink and turquoise are my BFF's.

Thursday I admired the empty studio space at Transit with the forest wall, and wished, again, that it were mine. I would fill the forest with little paper inhabitants and --- **.

On the train home the night before there was a mentally ill woman that walked up to people and told us she was sick. When no one would play with her, she started crying and sang, clapped her hands, smoked, put up her feet - anything and everything. She wore me out, and I was glad I could disappear into Let England Shake. At Transit a studio neighbour kept snuffling and clearing his throat loudly and played music, drummed on the table and sang along. Another neighbour had brought her little child that was really happy and shouted a lot. I took a freezing walk and bought myself some good coffee - unlike that lipstick smeared cup.

In the evening the Glenn and I went to the opening of Ai Weiwei's exhibition at Magasin 3. I had seen pictures of it at This is Naive and was quite expectant. But as with most things Stockholm, it was the mini version, and somehow it felt more like us, the spectators, were on display.

Friday I dyed my hair and the Glenn made hearts over my legs.

Saturday we went to Pike's gallery opening. There were quite a few things we wanted to bring home, but not enough cash. Mr Bobergotti agreed to share a bottle of Törley with us, and then we met up with friends. (That dog was so sick of people that I wanted to give him a fireplace of his own.)

Sunday was take away in bed and millions of movies.

Monday I waited forever at the police to make a new passport, I haven't changed mine since I became a Moe. Restless, I walked round the police house - and saw the tiny castles above the rain gutters! The Glenn and my mother had lunch, then my mother and I sprinted off to the cinema where we watched The Iron Lady (2011). It was moving, disturbing and uneven. I felt sick afterward, sick of grief, sick of politics, sick of fear of death and forgetfulness.

* Children's food = food that doesn't taste of anything but the flavours of childhood. Like macaroni, for instance, and prinskorv.

** I think that studio is taken now! The walls have been covered up.

t h e . m y s t e r i o u s . m o n a . l i s a . s m i l e . o f . t h e . a l b i n o . a n t e a t e r

2012-02-07T09:02:00.000+01:00

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Lisa and I have jokingly discussed the option of once and for all shedding all decency and Swedish lagom and only blog for one another, a straight forward "last time we spoke about this, so here are the pics" kinda thing. I'm not sure that arrangement would make anyone happy - though what do I know?

I do like the idea of blog team work, so this one is for you Lisa, a post sprung from one of our many gritty Facebook conversations, this particular one on which animals that end up on record covers. (Cats!)

Or maybe this is all just a tedious excuse for me to get to Take Photographs of the Internet, the way I like it? Behold, the albino animals:

That zebra looks like the villain in Foul Play (1978).

Totoro!

Mini Totoro!

Years ago I read a newspaper article about a hamster (or guinea pig) in Great Britain who'd by the owners been put in a toy pedal car (now what are the odds?) and figured out how to drive it. First it was content zooming about the house, then it rode its little car out in the street and out on the motorway. The police managed to pick it up and while they were looking for the owners the little beast continued speeding about the police station.

The story ended happily: as punishment for animal driving it was forced to eat its car and the belly was torn open from metal scraps.*

This ladybird is my personal favourite. Look at the shape, colouring and fashionable pattern - this beast is the proud kulturtant ** of the animal kingdom. You go ladybird, you go.

Lisa and I have a strange and dark passion for anteaters. The dressed ones eating whipped cream fill us with troubling sensations, while the ones in sweater vests with little Mona Lisa smiles, looking out of car windows are solely pleasurable. I'm sorry Lisa, but there were no albino anteaters On the Internet, this was the best I could get. The mask has got the anteater Mona Lisa smile down though.

* I might have made up the ending to that story.

** Kulturtanten, the culture lady or culture auntie, is a patron of the arts, a middle aged woman dressed in sharp patterns with symmetrical hair died in henna, black or red, with bold glasses and red lips. The kulturtant in the photo is of course world famous designer Gudrun Sjödén.
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m i y a z a k i h a e c k e l

2012-02-06T09:00:00.000+01:00

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In my old post Beautiful Science I wrote of the dark art of Ernst Haeckel.

Image source.

Re-watching the beginning of Nausicaä and the Valley of the Wind (1984), a Studio Ghibli production...

...I started thinking about Ernst Haeckel again. This scene to me is like a strange Haeckel - Hayao Miyazaki - LSD trippie hippie lovechild. The environmental drawings, with fantastic shapes and textures, are both beautiful and psychedelically eerie, because as fantastic as they are they leave a bad taste in your mouth of decay - a bit like the Haeckel - H.P. Lovecraft connection I did last time. (That the heroine's trousers are miscoulored so it looks like she's sexy naked with a tiny dress and high boots is unfortunate, but funny.)

This scene got me so excited I ordered the manga Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind volume one - of seven! - that Hayao Miyazaki made before making the movie, to get the movie made. I haven't bought a comic for years. Now I have so much to look forward to.

⊙⊙⊙⊙⊙⊙⊙⊙⊙⊙⊙⊙⊙⊙⊙⊙⊙⊙⊙⊙⊙⊙⊙⊙⊙⊙⊙⊙⊙⊙⊙⊙⊙⊙⊙⊙⊙⊙⊙⊙⊙⊙⊙⊙⊙⊙⊙⊙

2012-02-03T09:00:00.000+01:00

Look at my giant hands. I'm so big I could eat you, while you're still alive.

Anyway. I wanted to show you a project in progress, a mini vinyl room for Skerrie Things. What I have yet to make is carpets, ~~a plant~~ done!, lots of vinyls and posters for the walls... Oh, it's so much fun, and I can't wait to shoot it.

Do you remember the fanzine I contributed an image and text to, Portraits of Grandpa? It's out now, and you can get it here.

Happy weekend!

1 2 . 0 1 . 2 4 - 1 2 . 0 2 . 0 1

2012-02-02T09:00:00.000+01:00

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When I started this blog, it was much more a diary thing. I'd take my camera with me and take snapshots of what caught my eye. Since then I've posted about things I make as well as movies as what not, just a jumble of ideas and inspirations - which is probably what my diary would look like anyway! I let my blog follow me where life takes me, kinda.

I got tired of the whatever I see I take pictures of thing - it easily comes down to snow snow snow - grey grey grey - sun sun sun - grey grey grey, which of course has its charm - but that tiredness is nothing a new camera or app won't fix.

These are not instagrams, they are lookalikes (haha, I wish that was the name of the app!), I never got into instagrams. I fiddled with it a little before it hit the big time but... I don't know. It just never happened for me.

01 A tribute to my Golden Half camera.
02 Our kitchen knife cutting potatoes, the most mundane of chores.
03 Dishes looking good.
04 A chimney and dead tree tops at Telefonplan when I was out walking, mulling things over and making decisions.

05 A Christmas tree too late.
06 The cute designer stools and tables outside Konstfack, the clover table is covered with snow.
07 The view from my window at Transit - oh how I love having a view, it's good for thoughts.
08 A mini tree with a big tree house, in the exact same style as the houses around it. And slanting. Taken from the bus.

09 Me, in bed, tired.
10 Pippi Longstocking. She looks a bit mean, don't you think?
11 A fallen petal at Lisa's house. Goodbye tulips.
12 A beautiful o and u at a much too trendy café.

13 Eating at Mormors Dumplings - Grandma's Dumplings - with the Karol. Good place! I almost fell over afterward.
14 The Glenn, tired, drunk and sweet as candy.
15 My (in)expensive jewellery.
16 Our shower curtain. I want to make a new one, in baby blue and pink, like a big smooth sail.

17 Celebrating three years with the Glenn by eating spätzle at Bar Central. It was good!
18 A mess and tiny tape explosions on our sideboard.
19 Winter sunshine, hello - I've missed you!
20 Pins and needles.

21 I've been intrigued by this children's mask for days. I wonder how many times it's been run over.
22 The Glenn.
23 Remember my fever post? No waterproof shell for my new cell, instead it got a beautiful strass sticker. Oh, how it sparkles!
14 Our broken clock, silly:ly set on 6666, and a pink paper chain. The only "decent" corner in our kitchen (well, the clock is broken).

h e r o . h a r m o n i c a

2012-02-01T09:00:00.000+01:00

My relationship with my grandfather (on my father's side) was strange, and strained. He hadn't been a good father, and my step grandmother looked down upon us because we weren't upper class and because my mother isn't originally from Sweden. There was a divide in our family, and lots of past and present hurt and anger.

In spite of this I think my grandfather wanted to have a good relationship with me, even though we rarely met. He'd call me sometimes - never my father - send postcards, play with me when nobody watched. It was strange growing up in this family, hard to know what to do and not do. Everything was a mind game, or interpreted as such by the grown ups. Like every child I just wanted to have fun, to be loved and noticed.

So, heirloom number two is the mouth organ - oh, how I prefer the Swedish munspel! - that my grandfather gave me.*

I can't remember how old I was when he gave me this little mouth organ, but I can't have been very old. I used to play on it - purely improvisations! - and when I grew older, and my grandfather was dead, it got a new meaning to me, I kind of rediscovered it. This time not so much as a toy or an instrument, but for its design and packaging. Red, pink and gold - I've already told you how much I like that colour combo! And the Hero logo - I treasure it!

I scanned the lid and had it printed out as a poster. I could see myself do it again, this time on matte paper. I could see it cover a sideboard, especially one with sliding doors. Classy and trashy and naive (and weird).

For now I just keep it in a cupboard, together with my other treasures and knick-knacks.

I've told you about my grandfather once before here, in regards to my illustration in the fanzine Portraits of Grandpa, and I'm sure I will tell you more about him some other time. I have a longing to document my family, the living and the dead, and all their stories.

*Here is the link to the story about heirloom number one - Call of the Heirloom.
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p e r p e t u a l

2012-01-31T09:00:00.000+01:00

AGAIN with my feeble attempts at product photography.

TTV I thought was the best technique to capture the beautiful Papier Tigre calendar that the Glenn and I have purchased. Well, the dark and blurry does distract from our messy table...

What I wanted to show is that the calender is three meters tall... I actually had to cut some off.

It stretches from floor to ceiling...

This stool we found in a basement room behind the washing room in our building, it had been standing there for years. Does anyone know what the strange "extension" is for? We don't.

I don't think we're ever going to scribble anything onto it. Or maybe important random dates through the years. January 29th - the Glenn and I decided we're girlfriend and boyfriend. July 2nd - we got married. And so on.

Maybe I just should have used Papier Tigre's beautiful photos all along?
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e a r l y . m o r n i n g s , e a r l y . d i a m o n d s

2012-01-30T09:00:00.000+01:00

I constantly try to broaden myself, try new techniques and expressions - oh, that sounds so pretentious, but you know what I mean. Printing is fun, and there are easy ways to do it without stocking up on tools and supplies. Also, I wanted to do something rough, the opposite of drawing billions of thin lines... (Although I like that too!)

For you who follow my blog - hi! - you know that I for 2012 promised myself that I'd use more colour. So the idea was to turn these roughlings, still hot form the scanner...

...into colour:

This took me ages, and though cute, felt kinda... contrived. So I turned off the computer and did something else.

I couldn't stop thinking about my triangles. So I decided to try something... black and white. For fun.

Suddenly I had a forest.

That would work as a poster.

That you could put on repeat.

And that was easy to play with it.

So what's the moral of the story? Haha.

That my promise will come harder than I thought - I guess I have to find the colour combos that fit me. Damn you, colour combos! The title of this post is the title of a song that I wrote a few years back, that I hope to record within our band Colouroïd. I just might name the pattern after it. The song begins:

Early mornings, early diamonds, and the forest
Seeking patterns in the wilderness, and in the grounds

Went deep and wild for you
because that's what I thought you'd do

s i n c e . k i n g . b o r e . n e v e r . c a m e . I I I

2012-01-27T09:00:00.000+01:00

This is the third and last post where I pay homage to our missing winter by digging through my blog. That the winter of 2010 / 2011 was long and hard you can tell by the amount of photos - to begin with I added 52 photos to this post! I'm not that crazy though, now it's down to 32 (sigh). I hope you enjoy it!

The winter 2010 / 2011:

Black and white winter.

Pine trees, homemade and store made.

Twigs and powder snow.

At the old cholera cemetery. How very goth of me!

The view from my mother's balcony - you recognize these from record covers and Christmas cards?

At the graveyard. There's a little emo in me.

A solar eclipse, just around the corner from our street.

Our street door, and one of my favourite Sthlm houses, where restaurant Pelikan is at.

Waiting for meetings and having coffee, looking at the sky.

Winter light at home.

Long cold walks...

...admiring shadow play.

Visiting Karol and Egils.

Now I'll stay in the present a little. Happy weekend!
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s i n c e . k i n g . b o r e . n e v e r . c a m e . I I

2012-01-26T09:00:00.000+01:00

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Part two of my homage to this year's missing winter, is a mix of outings and everyday life. I hope you enjoy!

The winter 2009 / 2010:

Naked freezing people at Millesgården.

Veggie brunch at Kaknästornet. Look at all the mini skiers!

Ringvägen and some other street at Södermalm, I can't remember - Nytorgsgatan? Renstiernas gata? Skånegatan?

Suburban birds, one south of Sthlm, one north.

Photos from where my mother lives. I'm partial to these.

Coffee and walks at Sofo.

Playing in the snow at Skanstull.

The Bird who Fell to Earth's glasses, at Louie-Louie.

Rutger Fuchsgata, Dr Abelinsgata and Wollmar Yxkullsgatan. Lisa, the sparkly tree is from your street!
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s i n c e . k i n g . b o r e . n e v e r . c a m e . I

2012-01-25T08:00:00.000+01:00

There is a whisper that February is going to be cold and horrible, a too late winter. It would be cruel I think, since us Sthlmians have started feeling spring hopes. So maybe this post, honouring our lost friend winter is in vain, I don't know yet. Anyway, this is part one of three of winter photos from my blog. Hello winter, this is for you!

The winter 2008 / 2009:

At the allotment gardens in Märsta with my mother, a place that has intrigued me for years. I like mini worlds.

Hibernating boats, ready for summer's arrival.

Winter sunshine is the bestest.

Jessica and I visiting the vintage shop chain Myrorna (The Ants) in Ropsten. This is the neighbourhood.

I was part of shooting a short film - no, it wasn't a horror film - at The Woodland Cemetery.

Visiting a friend in Rinkeby, a suburb where I used to live for five years - well, during this time I also lived in Visby, Halle-am-Saale, Berlin and one month in Copenhagen.

During a walk on the ice - a suicide mission this year - the Glenn and I discovered a shipwreck. A Russian immigrant had lived there, and as the ship sank one person died. This - for other reasons - was a very special walk for the Glenn and I. We hadn't been together long, and everything was new and frail.

"Come on Karol, show me your 'new' record!" My digital zoom isn't the best.

White on white in Alby.

More winter and snow tomorrow!

( 。・_・。)人(。・_・。 )

2012-01-24T08:00:00.000+01:00

(I can hear the Glenn sigh: "Don't write about movies, it's boring, write about your life", but:) Some movies are like old friends, and sometimes you need to dive back into their worlds. It's like spiritual comfort food, when the world is grey - hello January! - and your man is at work and can't hug you.

So, I'm currently having a Studio Ghibli race, when I can't sleep, at lunches and breakfasts, revisiting old friends like Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984), My Neighbour Totoro (1988), Princess Mononoke (1997), Spirited Away (2001), Howl's Moving Castle (2004), Tales from Earthsea (2006), The Secret World of Arrietty (2010)...

I had a sudden craving to say hi to the soot - I love the word soot, so cute! - in Spirited Away. Half through they are replaced by the hamster - or is it a guinea pig? - and bird:

Soot!

Hamster and bird!

This is probably as cute as it gets.

When Jessica and I were in Japan, we didn't realize you had to book in advance to visit the Ghibli Museum. Next time!

And next post will have regulated levels of cuteness.
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w h a l e s . e a g l e s . s h a r k s . a n d . b o y s

2012-01-23T08:00:00.000+01:00

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Hello, good morning - good Monday to you!

I haven't watched many movies from New Zealand, in fact I can only name three*: Whale Rider (2002), Eagle vs. Shark (2007) and Boy (2010). These three, different as they are to each other, I've all enjoyed. They are about families that have been through hardship and try to stick together. What has moved me the most is the humour, and the homes. The homes seem really important, and they are all out of style, worn out assemblies of dark wood, heirlooms and trinkets. It makes me curious of New Zealand and New Zealand movies - is it just these three movie homes, or generally like that - no home styling, no IKEA, no trends, no white and glossy? It seems strange.

Whale Rider (2002) "On the east coast of New Zealand, the Whangara people believe their presence there dates back a thousand years or more to a single ancestor, Paikea, who escaped death when his canoe capsized by riding to shore on the back of a whale. From then on, Whangara chiefs, always the first-born, always male, have been considered Paikea's direct descendants. Pai, an 11-year-old girl in a patriarchal New Zealand tribe, believes she is destined to be the new chief. But her grandfather Koro is bound by tradition to pick a male leader. Pai loves Koro more than anyone in the world, but she must fight him and a thousand years of tradition to fulfill her destiny."

Pai lives with her grandparents, and a lot of the movie takes part in their home:

Eagle vs. Shark (2007) "Eagle vs Shark is the tale of two socially awkward misfits and the strange ways they try to find love; through revenge on high-school bullies, burgers, and video games."

The pics are from four different homes: The orphan siblings Lily and Damon's home, Jarrod's bachelor pad, Jarrod's childhood home and Jarrod's friend's house.

Boy (2010) "It's 1984, and Michael Jackson is king-even in Waihau Bay, New Zealand. Here we meet Boy, an 11-year-old who lives on a farm with his gran, a goat, and his younger brother, Rocky (who thinks he has magic powers). Shortly after Gran leaves for a week, Boy's father, Alamein, appears out of the blue. Having imagined a heroic version of his father during his absence, Boy comes face to face with the real version-an incompetent hoodlum who has returned to find a bag of money he buried years before. This is where the goat enters."

These pics are from Boy's gran's house, where he lives:

These homes have lingered with me. They have a warmth and sense of being lived in. I like the range of colours, the different materials. I'm fascinated by the ability to create a sense of past time in movies, a belief that things have happened before the movie starts, before we put our eyes to the keyhole. It's a little magic.

*Reading this list of New Zealand films I realize I've watched many more.

p i n e

2012-01-20T09:07:00.001+01:00

This has been a week of miniatures and audio books. I'm deep into listening to Neil Gaiman read his The Graveyard Book. It has so many of his traits and fancies, it's classic Gaiman stuff.

These pine cones come from my sister's garden, and are quite big, as long as my hand. For our Colouroïd performance at the Norberg festival I was going to put them in my hair, like a spiky bun, but it never happened. Now they just rustle quietly in a blue paper bag. I quite like having them though, as a token.

I just started wondering what our stuff do at night when we're asleep. We don't really know that they are still, inanimate. It's Gaiman getting to my head, another classic trait. Dead people and dead gods and endless possibilities, kinda, and so many things that can go wrong at night.

t h e . r o o m . w h e r e . t e e n a g e r s . c o m e . t o . d r o w n

2012-01-19T08:00:00.000+01:00

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Once upon a time we toyed with the idea of using the dollhouse as a mini showroom for our shop. I like the idea of mini versions of merchandise. It's simple and cute. And manageable.

These T-shirts and the bag are still glued to our closet door. Looking at this room now, I realize I made a teenage room out of what doll furniture I had lying around (lying around as in, inside a tartan plastic bag in the attic). Brown fitted carpet, Topography wallpaper, pink lamp and much too many Barbie shoes - this is the room where the Virgin Suicides come to die over and over, surrounded by 70's lace and icons (The Style Rookie is the expert on this, not I, like so, etcetera). An underwaterworld mini room.

If you wonder why there are so many photos it's because I'm too lazy to pick one out, I just stack'em. And under water means lost in time (time = the weight of water). Maybe I should add a code key to my blog, that would make for interesting reading. And 3D glasses, of course.

s p l o s h

2012-01-18T08:00:00.000+01:00

It's hard to picture Matt Damon as a mermaid, but here for once he is. He's got a big sploshy tail and wiggles about in the dark and the fluorescent, kissing welcoming lips, cold as underwater hot dogs.

My father once told me that when the ship would cross the equator they'd have a big Neptune masquerade where everybody would get off their heads. He told me of how whales would scratch their backs on the ship, making it wiggle like a little thing, of albatrosses landing and not being able to leave, of seeing UFO's and calling radar stations to find out if anything was in the air at that specific place (there wasn't).

Never once did he see Matt Damon the mermaid.

Pics from The Bourne Supremacy (2004). Line-crossing ceremonies seem to be quite the thing. Let's have a whoopie.

c a l l . o f . t h e . h e i r l o o m

2012-01-17T08:53:00.000+01:00

I took a series of photos of heirlooms, you know, minor stuff, and this is the watch that used to belong to my grandmother on my mother's side. I realize I know very little about it, and her. She didn't buy many things, and there were few she picked up for herself. We have a heavy jug in brown knobbly glass, and then there is this, her watch... All I know about it is that it's from Russia.

I love the cardboard box with letters in matte gold...

The watch is plectrum shaped - my favourite shape! - and has an amber lid.

Look how beautifully cut it is, the pattern that light molds.

Around your neck it hangs upside down until you pick it up and hold it like a tiny ticking bird. You must rewind it each day.

I never wear it, terrified I might loose it. Maybe I think another woman should have it, someone in control, with long hair and a slender body in a black turtle neck, and the watch would hang around her neck like a gem or trophy. I'm more like a little brownie (tomte), always half muddled. On the other hand my grandmother was a tiny peasant woman - was she a peasant from the beginning though, I don't know, but probably, I've always just assumed - her body a square from giving birth to six children and the Karelian diet of berries, rye and dairy. Trust me, a week there, and unless you're working the land you're constipated.

Three more thoughts:

1. I'm weirded out by the way my hands look in photos, especially up close. In real life I like them, they are tiny and annoyingly bendy, and soft, but in photos every horrible bit of your nails and cuticles show, and all the weird wrinkles and puckers. My skin seems red and blotchy, though in real life it's quite yellowish.

2. I imagine that an heirloom is a bird. I can hear it call out from the forest at night. Hello... Come get your stuff... I've got good stuff... It sounds a bit like a stock dove, sad and dark.

3. My mother is getting so old, and soon a whole world that I grew up with and took for granted will be forever lost. I must continue interviewing her. It seems I'm trying to hold back endless waves of grain that is bound to sooner or later cover us. It frightens and saddens me.

m e m o r i e s . o f . s t e a m . l o c o m o t i v e

2012-01-16T08:00:00.000+01:00

Monday Monday Monday

I've spent a week exhausted and fever ridden. The days just sift through my tired fingers, our place is a mess, and chores are stacked up - among piles of rubbish. So many half finished projects. The Glenn has done the laundry, made dinner and cleaned the kitchen. I've been yawning sweating coughing under heavy blankets. I'm sick of this now (!), I want old Ella back, the one who could go up a flight of stairs without seeing stars.

Let's find our happy place, our luxurious center, and think about happier times... My second Christmas gift to the Glenn was a book called Memory of Steam Locomotive, that I found among the records at a second hand shop...

Since it has a hard cover I thought it was a double LP or a thematic LP collection of some kind. I picked it up and pulled out this thick, cloth covered book with gold letters... It's a little magic, non?

Then I opened it...

Locomotive...

...after locomotive...

...going through heartbreakingly beautiful landscapes. And look at the lay out. Each page a record cover.

Maybe I should have photographed more pages. But I got bored and thought: Nobody cares anyway IT'S JUST TRAINS. And stopped. But listen, you know where to find me. If you want more trains, tell me.
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f l u f f y

2012-01-13T08:00:00.000+01:00

Fever.

I never listen to music when I'm alone.

Money.

I dropped my iPhone in the loo.

If it lives should I get an ugly expensive waterproof shell or a strass sticker from China Lee depicting a dolphin jumping under a rainbow?

Worry.

Too tired to draw or realize any dreams.

I hope I'm well enough for tomorrow.

I contact idols on internet - and get replies. (Excited!)

Jumbled.
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m e n . i n . p l a i d . p l a y i n g . w i t h . s y n t h e s i z e r s

2012-01-12T08:00:00.000+01:00

At Lisa and Kroffe's wedding party I admired the men in plaid who were enjoying the synthesizer playpen that Kroffe had set up. I kept thinking: At another time, what would they have played with? Cars? Radios? (And then my Sherlock Holmes riddled brain start suggesting things like: Laudanum? Cocaine? Violins? Followed by pure nonsense: Antibiotics? X-rays? Airplanes?)

My favourite is the little red TV showing myrornas krig, or noise. It's the noise I like, I mean.
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* _ *

2012-01-11T08:00:00.000+01:00

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For Lisa and Kroffe's wedding party last weekend I had found this tacky card at my favourite shop China Li - pink! gold! red! - with the inscription: To have and to hold forever. It sounds a little kidnapp:y, but I focused on the romance - the Stockholm syndrome? - of red, gold and pink, and birds, flowers and foreign languages.

Look at that.

It's a fold out...

...and inside the Glenn had made a ~~burning~~ drawing ~~with no charters~~.

This is just to show off the silky surface.

Congrats Lisa and Kroffe!

Among the gifts were art and records, and at Lisa's blog Överhuvudet you can see the art - including the first pics of Topography in someone else's home. I like.
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n i k i t a . n i k i t a . n i k i t a . n i k i t a . n i k i t a . n i k i t a

2012-01-10T09:01:00.000+01:00

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Lisa was right when she commented that I can't very well have a label called Drawing in film, and not mention La Femme Nikita (1990). This movie is one year late of the 80's, but to me it really feels like an 80's movie.

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Dear Anne Parillaud, I will always be a bit in love with you for this.
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w a l d e r s t e n . 3 6 5

2012-01-09T09:22:00.000+01:00

I feel that it's not in product photography my true talent lies...

Look at that. They won't teach you that at school.

I wanted to show you the beautiful book Glenn's dad gave us for Christmas, Waldersten 365. It contains one drawing per day made during a year's time, by the super duper talented illustrator Jesper Waldersten.

The book is beautiful from every angle, opened or closed.

Look at the back. Isn't that gorgeous? So well thought-out.

Except to show you the binding, I won't show you any of the pages, because...

...you can look at them yourselves at the almost equally beautiful site Waldersten 365.
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p h o t o s . o f . d r a w i n g s

2012-01-06T08:00:00.000+01:00

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As you might recall, this autumn I borrowed a Canon EOS 7D and documented some of my my illustrations. Scans are good but a little flat, so I thought it would be nice to mix things up, to make my portfolio more tangible and alive.

Portraits of Grandpa

I have two work related vows for next year:

1. Income, as in get one. This has indeed been a poor year - but looking back I feel as though we've lived and loved as richly as Aristocats.

2. Add colour, to both my illustrations and myself. Black and grey are means, but not the end.
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p o r t r a i t s . o f . g r a n d p a

2012-01-05T08:00:00.000+01:00

(There are more pictures of this project at my portfolio.)

In May 2011 I decided to join the fanzine Portraits of Grandpa - compose an illustration and a text about your grandfather - and in December I got my issue. Nice! I've dived deep into the stories of different grandpas, and thought a lot about my other grandpa, the one I didn't tell about.

My mother's father I never met. He survived the war and was rewarded with a bit of land, close to the Russian border, in northern Karelia in Finland. He and my grandmother had five children and ran a small farm in the woods until he was was drowned at 40.

Somehow it felt easier, safer, to write about the grandfather I knew, Carl-Eric. It was difficult enough to chose a snippet of all the info you carry with you. I couldn't stop thinking that maybe my sister and I were the last of the family to see him before he died, and for sure I was the first to know - brrr! It was a weird night, sitting in my bed, wondering how to get hold of someone to tell. It was summer and everyone were lost deep in holiday, I was the only one the people at the hospital could find.

Since it wasn't a goth fanzine I made my piece on dogs and boats and spiders - strong childhood memories, full of scent and touch. I don't know yet when Portraits of Grandpa will be released, but I do know I'll look for more collaborations. It was fun!

In May when I sent my piece, I wasn't married yet, so both me and my blog have our old names. It's kinda weird and nice, like the last of something, etched in print.
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c h r i s t m a s . g r e e d

2012-01-04T08:00:00.000+01:00

I thought I'd show you some of this years' Christmas gifts... In my family we're not big on neither the gifts nor the stress or abundance of food, thankfully. Each year we play a Christmas game and gamble over gifts, and the Glenn and I have a private morning ceremony with coffee and parcels, and that I love - especially the giving to him part.

In the game I managed to win my own gifts.

A ghost! No, angel candles - but melting their heads must surely mean bad luck? I'm scared.

And two glasses and a small black bowl. We really need glasses, so that was good. The Glenn got a goat to give away to a woman in Africa and truffle oil for us - that sentence says it all, right.

I had been fussing over my gift to him for months, trying to get the money for it.

A re-print of New York's 1972 metro map, designed by Massimo Vignelli. (Here's some info and here's an actual good pic - !) I fell in love with those chubby lines, and you can't underestimate New York's importance for graffiti.

Speaking of chubby...

...the Glenn gave me a luxury edition of coloured pencils, with both thick and thin tips. He's my colour provider, since I'm slightly colour impaired (hello, black and white portfolio!). These pencils make me feel like a child at Christmas - I can't wait to dig in, yet I'm kinda scared to, you know.

There were also two books in the mix, one for Glenn and one from Glenn's dad, but I'll get to them later...
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c a n d y l a n d

2012-01-03T09:57:00.000+01:00

Never Let Me Go (2010) is the movie I mentioned yesterday that made me so uncomfortable. It's not the best I've watched, but it touches on some really uncomfortable subjects - surgery, the world of hospitals and how we value life - our own and others. It's interesting in a low key melodramatic way, like a health care version of 1984.

The movie made we think about three things - well four, but one is too private:

If you've had surgery and you remember the feeling in your body waking up, not of pain but of a fundamental sense of loss, that something that shouldn't be tampered with has been, and that your body, like a child, is grieving. My limbs ached watching this movie, in remembrance.

On New Year's Eve going up to the ninth floor the elevator stopped between floors. It was a small elevator and we couldn't move much. I have claustrophobia, something I know but have never taken seriously. Standing in the elevator I realize that if we're trapped I probably won't be able to hold it in. I can't breathe, I panic, the physical reaction of our world coming to an end is so strong. I think about how bad it'll be for the others in the elevator, of how I'll only want to die. Lisa sees my reaction and makes light (thank you!), then Glenn phones our friends in the flat, they tell us what to do, "it happens all the time", and we get out.

Last, I've found a set of three Sherlock Holmes books, printed in the 30's. The combination of 1800's English and 30's Swedish suit the tone of voice, and makes it more annoying, pompous, self centered. I read about sovereigns (furstar - ett favvoord i böckerna), beautiful women, trouble in the colonies. It's a chokingly small world. On the other hand, reading the news, has much changed?

One volume is random short stories, and this passage I thought of while watching Never Let Me Go (in Swedish, sorry!):

Endast en rad av huvuden var mellan dem och operationsbordet. Det var av omålad fur, enkelt, starkt och minutiöst rent. En brun vaxduk täckte hälften av det, och under stod ett stort tennfat med sågspån. På bortre sidan framför fönstret stod ett bord, som var belamrat med skinande instrument. En rad knivar med fina, långa, tunna blad låg på ena sidan. Två unga män sutto framför detta. Den ene trädde nålar. /.../

En rörelse av intresse gick genom de tättpackade bänkarna, när en kvinna i underkjol och korsett fördes in av två sköterskor. En röd ylleschal var svept kring hennes huvud och hals. Ansiktet, som tittade fram ur den, tillhörde en kvinna i blomman av sin ålder, men det bar spår av lidande och hade en egendomlig vaxfärgad teint. /.../

Kvinnan låg på operationsbordet och den farliga tumören var blottad. Den var i sig ett vackert ting, elfenbensvit med ett nät av blå ådror och sträckte sig i en svag båge från kinden till bröstet. Men det mjuka, gula ansiktet och den fibrösa strupen stodo i hemsk kontrast till denna fasansfulla växt. /.../

Patienten jämrade sig svagt under handduken, som hade blivit lagd över hennes ansikte. Hon försökte lyfta armarna och draga upp knäna, men två assistenter hindrade henne. Den tunga luften var mättad av den genomträngande lukten av kloroform. Ett dämpat skrik hördes från handduken och sedan en bit av en sång, sjungen med hög, darrande och monoton röst.
"He says, says he,
If you fly away with me
You'll be the mistress of the ice-cream van;
You'll be mistress of the - "

s n i p p e t s . s n i p p . s n a p p . s n u t

2012-01-02T09:44:00.002+01:00

Hello 2012.

Yesterday was Indian food at Samrat with friends, our bestest New Years tradition ever. Then wine with friends, a walk through the dark and rain, candy - lösgodis - and movie night in bed. One movie made me severely uncomfortable (oh, the ache in my body), another sucked - John Carpenter, what did you do?

New Years was so loving. We were on the ninth floor in a suburb, in a ginormous flat with a balcony overlooking Sthlm. And yes, we filmed a little, with the wrong kind of film though. I'm so excited.

Three December snippets:

A pattern I would love to see it on a kimono (or a modern take of one), so I think if I use it I might call it that.

I'm so happy that I after five years of living in this tiny flat, overlooking our tiny yard, can find new shadows and light. Hello, mini world.

Walking home in the dark I suddenly noticed that someone had glued giant cherub scraps to their ceiling. Who lives in this room, and where did they get them? Might they be placed over a bed? Weird little girl romance.
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o h . s t a r r y . s k y

2011-12-31T08:00:00.000+01:00

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Fireworks and explosions! Inside and outside.

Let's dive into dark space as 2011 crumbles. It was a good and a bad year. Getting married was great, whilst finances sucked.

We've had a lot of discussions about this poster, it hangs above our bed. Glenn found it in a closed factory that's been artists studios, a squat and now --- nothing. It's just waiting for its demolition.

(Hey, can you see my childhood dollhouse radio on top of the button - ! We have really ugly buttons.)

Is it some kind of velvet paper with paint on it or a white paper with a velvet print on it? Is it stained or screen printed or both? Who cares?

Bye-bye 2011, welcome 2012! Do what thou whilst with us, and whilst thou nothing we'll just do as we please.
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n o . f o x . f o r . p e p s i / w i n t e r . b l u e s

2011-12-30T08:00:00.000+01:00

Pepsi, the little monkey bear bulldog, is in heat. The wild fox of the mountain (Skinnarviksberget) gave her the eye: "Hello, gorgeous. You know, you and I, maybe we could...?" Her parents backed her out of it. No fox for Pepsi.

Our wedding party flowers have wilted. The Glenn and I are reluctant to throw them away. They seem to be the last... of something great.
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c a t . p e o p l e ( 1 9 4 2 )

2011-12-29T12:47:00.000+01:00

She's a cat lady.

A dream office.

All of a sudden I've dibbi-dabbi-dabbled in critical journalism and compared Cat People (1982) with Cat People (1942). This isn't random points of views because I can no longer remember what I was thinking watching these movies (yes, I hear the double entendre), but serious research. You know me, I'm not halfhearted.

Cat People (1942)

Story:

An American man marries a Serbian immigrant who fears that she will turn into the cat person of her homeland's fables if they are intimate together.

This movie has ten taglines, which is like nine too many. My favourite:

LOVELY WOMAN... GIANT KILLER-CAT... THE SAME "PERSON"!... IT'S SUPER-SENSATIONAL!

My least favourite:

She Was Marked With The Curse Of Those Who Slink And Court And Kill By Night!

Does only annoying people get to write taglines? And if so, why can't I? For the 1942 one I'd suggest:

Whiny lady meets too kind a man and like the cat. (You're supposed to say "like the cat" meaningly, with one eyebrow maliciously raised.)

And for the 1982 version:

Humans Steal All The Good Sex From Leopards!!!

Or:

Furry Siblings Get Hot And Heavy In Trail Of Blood And Guts!!!

You see, raw talent. Moving on:

Cat People (1982)
Story:

The Cat People originated way back in time, when humans sacrificed their women to Leopards, who mated with them. Cat People look similar to humans, but must mate with other Cat People. We follow brother and sister - who seem to be the only ones of their kind left...

It's probably clever to exclude the incest. Cat People from '82 only has three taglines, and they're all bad. My pick:

They Are Something More Than Lovers Who Are About to Become Something Less Than Human.

Huh, come again?

Best of Cat People (1942):

Better story

Less incest

More subtle transformations from person to cat and back - more shadow and light play, less mask and sweat

Gets its mystery from film noir, which is classy

Less bad sex (if you're into that)

Best of Cat People (1982):
Nastassja Kinski
Better soundtrack - David Bowie and Giorgio Moroder!
Gets its mystery from New Orleans, which is cheesy
More bad sex (if you're into that)

The panthers were equally good in both movies, and the zoos equally shitty. Humans are stupid beings.

If I had to watch only one of them again, I'd pick the 1982 one solely because of Nastassja, Simone Simon to me was so annoying. The men in neither movie made much impression on me. If David Bowie had replaced Malcolm McDowell things would have been different. Probably as bad a movie, but different. I'm an optimist.

c a t . p e o p l e ( 1 9 8 2 )

2011-12-28T07:56:00.000+01:00

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If you were an 80's panther on the prowl, this is how awesome the world would be, like a nocturnal disco world where everything is chewy. The rest - that is everything but this one scene - of Cat People (1982) isn't as good. It's more gothic sexy gone pale and stale with a twist of incest (could I have that with a straw, please?).

This blog is likely to turn into a proper movie blog the next few days. I'm far too coughy and snivelly right now to realize any of my multitude of ideas so I'll use whatever I've got stashed and that just so happens to be movie posts. I use my nocturnal cough time to blog - I'm far from the panther, right!

This photo is for sure my favourite holiday season photo so far. Just stare into those dark eyes and ask yourself the questions you usually steer away from. (Does steel wool really hurt that bad? Is it wrong to kiss your beloved with chloroform dabbed lips? Is loneliness forever? Or whatever burdens your black heart. Nocturnal cough time, remember?)

Also, there's greed. I want Karin's horrible tooth necklace. I love me that exposed glittery blood.
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w i m . a n d . n a s t a s s j a - a n d . d a v e ?

2011-12-27T13:08:00.000+01:00

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I want Nastassja for Santa. Can I, please?

There is a little David Lynch inside of Wim Wenders, don't you think *, sticking Nastassja Kinski in Paris, Texas (1984), in a fake hotelroom box with the TV constantly set on noise, talking and stripping, looking at her own reflection, guided by the appeals of invisible men. (Blä.)

She's so beautiful, a bit like the lovechild of Ingrid Bergman and Sophia Loren - yum!

An interesting thing about Paris, Texas is that it's set out of time, nothing screams the 80's. Don't you think it must be easier to reference a specific time rather than creating a sort of timeless present? I don't know.

* Since Paris, Texas is six years older than Twin Peaks which I'm referring to, it's probably it's the other way around, right? Time trav'lin' and general the devil may care:ness is the beauty of free association though - you can tell my imagination to walk a straight line, but it simply won't.
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å . s å . e n . c i g g . p å . d e t

2011-12-24T08:00:00.000+01:00

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Smokin' Baby Jesus says Merry Christmas! Christmas is here - it's everywhere!
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c h r i s t m a s . p r e p a r a t i o n s

2011-12-23T08:00:00.000+01:00

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Even though the Glenn and I might not have the Christmas spirit, it seems the other inhabitants of our tiny home do. Can you spot them?

No? I don't blame you, it's lost in nonsense and patchwork TTV isn't the best documenting technique. Happily they lined up for me to have their pictures taken:

Little My and her secret smile - and Santa hat.

Even the skeleton wore a hat, handsome for Christmas.

The rabbit had a hard time fitting his over his ears. Glenn, is it a he or a she?

The bear and the horse look sharp together.

Even the tiny crane has a hat of its own.
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m y . b a b y ' s . g r o w i n g . u p

2011-12-22T10:48:00.000+01:00

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Today my blog turns three! Look at this mess, one square per post as we move backwards through time, from now until the beginning:

Phew! It seems when my time is up I'll be leaving some photos behind.

This is the first ever pic I posted. I'm trying to remember why I chose to start blogging two days before Christmas, but I can't - most likely it was just by chance. I wonder if behind every blogger there's an inspirational "gateway blogger" that got us into our heavy blogging habits?

PS! If you want to be able to click on the mini pictures to read the individual posts - click here and you can!
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f o l k s a m

2011-12-21T08:00:00.000+01:00

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This high-rise building is called Folksamhuset (The Folksam Building). It's an insurance company's head office and situated right where our tiny street ends. For a while we've been obsessing a little - that's a contradiction! - over what the top floor might look like, because from what we've heard, it's the representation floor. Imagine having a club night there, overlooking Sthlm. At night the top lights up in a beautiful pattern.

I've tried finding pictures of the inside of Folksamhuset - and even e-mailed to ask if we could come have a look - but so far this is all I've got:

Pic links: One + two and three.

This doesn't make me less curious!
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l o m o k i n o - t h e . f u t u r e . i s . a n a l o g u e

2011-12-20T09:42:00.000+01:00

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Once upon a time I read a one sentence mention of the Lomokino camera at Old Brand New and did a double take. I have to have that!!! I thought to myself and since a while back... we do! I'm excited to learn our new friend's can:s and won't:s, and the idea is the premiere filming will happen at New Year's. I'll let you know if bubblies worked well with tripods and fireworks.

For the first time in two years time we won't have a New Year's 30m2 Rave at home, our wedding masquerave was plenty. Instead we're moving the party to friends' flat... Plans are being made, lovely.

The people in charge of branding and package design over at Lomo must have a field day most every day, they do such a good job. I love the slogan: The future is analogue. It evokes beautiful images, back to Metropolis, kinda.
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w h a t . n i g h t m a r e s . a r e . m a d e . o f

2011-12-19T08:00:00.000+01:00

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This is how I would imagine one of the many hell dimensions could be like, masked people stuck in an endless dance led by you-know-who - well, we all know how that story goes. This is not how this post started though. Watching Treme I got so fascinated by the hippie / rag doll / ku klux klan / stjärngosse costumes of the Louisiana Mardi Gras celebration that I had to TTV the screen a little. (Does that sentence make sense at all, or is it just weird words and names piled on top of each other, without context or substance?)

The reason I decided to photograph this scene was because I couldn't stop thinking of... how pink it was. So much pink in these costumes. Pink pink pink - we've established I like pink. Looking at the pics now they are much more nightmarish than... you know, that.
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g a m l a . e n s k e d e

2011-12-16T08:00:00.000+01:00

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Isn't the dentist's sign in the first pic too cute? Look - a tiny hole!

Lately I've had reason to walk through the suburb Gamla Enskede on my way home, and that's where these photos are from. It's been quite a pleasure, looking at the idyllic houses, thinking about class and the inevitable course of gentrification (is it inevitable - ?), trying to discern what it is I actually want for myself. It's so easy to get carried away playing make belief surrounded by pretty houses, but I know more than well that I don't want a house, because I don't want to change the roof, buy a new boiler, mow lawns or drain the grounds. In my spare time I want to draw, snuggle up with my love and cook dinners with friends and if something breaks, call the landlord. In my heart I'm a renter, for sure.

On another note - this Bobergotti Christmas music video is the only thing so far that's given me the Christmas spirit!

d e c e m b e r . 1 5 t h

2011-12-15T08:00:00.000+01:00

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Today it's six years to the day since my father died. I don't usually blog about things as sensitive as this, but somehow this year I wanted to commemorate the day. Because this space isn't only a blog, but also my personal diary.

I'm plotting a movie that touches his life and death, or at least circumstances regarding it, and it feels good. Fragile, but good. It's not my first attempt and most likely not my last, because I still want to know - what happens with people's memories when they die? Are the memories erased, or secretly stored somewhere, out of our touch?
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m y . n a m e . i s . d r a m a , m e l o . d r a m a

2011-12-14T10:04:00.000+01:00

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Let's start with a detour: The movies of Pedro Almodóvar has been one of my big loves in life: Labyrinth of Passion (1982), The Flower of My Secret (1995), Live Flesh (1997), Talk to Her (2002) and my favourite All About My Mother (1999), to name but a few. Before the arrival of Pedro's every new movie I get all itchy.

Lately though, the itch has become more a hope that I won't get disappointed (again!). That's the difficulty when expectations are high, I guess, and you and an old hero might be parting ways. (No! Don't say that!) Broken Embraces (2009) didn't do much for me. The good guy I thought was the bad guy and the bad guy the good guy. And then there's The Skin I Live In (2011)... Oh my. For Pedro the first name of Drama is always Melo, for sure, and unrealistic plots part of his trick, but---

I stagger. And realize I'm bound to rewatch it, scrutinize each frame like a... baboon, probably. But no, I didn't think it was all that good.

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Let's focus on the positive - the making of a wallpaper during the duration of The Skin I Live In. Hear, hear, from this post on, Drawing in Film is an official label for this blog. I kept wondering about the weird wallpaper, and was very happy to find out.

I want to tell you two more things, completely unrelated to each other!

One is, tomorrow is the last day of Skerrie Things Christmas offer. No more hounding you with cards and calendars (this year!).

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And second: The other night I dreamt I was shot in the temple from a close range. I felt a burn and then everything darkened as I died. It felt eerily realistic, and more weird than my weird, elaborate dreams usually are. Have you ever experienced your own death in dreams? Did it hurt?
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w i n t e r . d i a m o n d

2011-12-13T08:00:00.001+01:00

Barely I've published any photo taken during the glorious half week I had with the Canon 7D, but here are a few. I think I got some kind of block - I get so excited that I almost get over it, if you know what I mean? It's like a weird creative backlash that's almost instant.

This is one of my favourite mirrors, a vintage gem, heavy from the thick wood frame behind the glass and foil. I haven't got a single thing of worth, that is made by Someone, so by gem I mean it was cheap and I really, really like it. !

The origami diamond light chain project is still in progress, then and now I stitch one on or fold a new one. I really enjoy it. The light gets much warmer, a bit like autumn leaves. The big decision is whether I'll wrap the chord in yellow silk ribbon but you know, it's not something to get stressed up over the pace this is going - slooow!

g l o s y l t . m e d . b l ä n g s å s

2011-12-12T10:21:00.000+01:00

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During a walk home a few weeks ago I saw...

...a house covered by bridges and thunder...

...hibernating boats, carefully dressed for winter's arrival...

...a thoughtfully framed forest...

...a starry eyed bridge, twinkle, twinkle...

...trees, quietly making patterns...

...a bridge waiting for lonely trains to storm off on it into the sunset...

...gateways into secret dimensions...

...gender conservative twin boats...

...and most magic of them all - the soaring twig. Seriously, I halted my limp - I was carrying heavy machinery, on heels, stupid but pretty pretty - and just stared. At the twig - still soaring - at passers-by - nobody noticing - at the twig - still soaring - until I hauled up my phone because my camera had flickered into sleep and took a picture ('cos it'll last you longer!).

PS! These photos are so dark - can you imagine they were taken before 3 pm? Hello northern winter, here I am.

t h e . o n e . w h e r e . s h e . g o e s . c r a z y - o r - t h e . t r u m a n . s h o w

2011-12-09T13:18:00.000+01:00

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If this post were a Friends episode, it would be called: The one where she goes crazy. (You do remember how they all began with "The one where..."? Yeah, you do, of course you do.) So, some time ago I watched The Truman Show (1998) for the first time and I really liked it, especially the ending. So if you haven't watched it - stop right here, it'll only get worse. A non stop ending until the end of this post.

IMDb claims that: "The ending mirrors the ending of the C.S. Lewis book "Voyage of the Dawn Treader", #4 of the Narnia series (#3 in publication order), with a ship sailing to the end of the "known" world and encountering a sky-blue wall, with a doorway leading to "another" world."

I'm quite well reversed with Narnia since childhood but that's not what came to my mind, oh nooo. (The other day though I saw a man on the subway that looked exactly like Aslan would if he were human. I wanted to go up and tell him or take his picture, but I didn't dare to. How do you start off that conversation? "You know Aslan..." It would go from awkward to bad right there.)

Anyway, just like The Scarlet Pimpernel, Jim Carrey's wardrobe goes from silly, preppy über white American - change "American" into "English" and "preppy" into "vain" for the Pimp' yo - to man of action. He's all rugged and in control as he literally ends his world with a crash:

Boom!

So, here's where I start losing it and just like Joseph McCarthy see communism everywhere:

Pic link. (This poster is called: "Hail the heroic partisans, who destroy the rear of the Fascists". Poor rear.)

Look at the pose and clothes and demeanor - Jim Carrey is no longer an insurance broker, he's a man of the people. (Just like women get to shake out their hair and take off their glasses and become sexy librarian instead of dried up librarian, this is the preferred movie transformation for men, and as glorious each time. Seriously, change works on film.)

The end of Narnia? The end of the east block more like it. See it my way: a benevolent, all seeing dictator has programmed a perfect, idealistic world where its inhabitants have each a role to perform in a megalomaniac puzzle --- This aint the White Witch y'all.

Now, I promised you communism and communism you'll get:

I love visible sets, and this ending made my day, so beautiful and flat. My mind, with the speed of light, traveled from Soviet to China:

Pic link. (These posters are for sale, and at the site you can watch them uncropped and uncompromised, like they should be.)

Look at the beautiful, flat, idealistic scenery and the theatrical poses of Madame Mao's opera. It's a candy coloured universe where armed dancers perform a political message for the people. (I can't find a good link for Madame Mao's opera, this is the best so far.)

Now tell me, isn't the blue sky of The Truman Show reminiscent of that of Madame Mao's?

The last poster is from the revolutionary ballet "The White Hair Girl"(1973) and I've wanted a copy for myself for years, it's so revolutionary Hello Kitty* cute that my teeth rot. In its entirety it looks like this. Unfortunately it's a rare and sold out poster, so I've temporarily printed out a mini for myself:

For no apparent reason I've placed it between Little My, the Berlin TV-tower and a Deutsche Bahn train. Welcome to my universe - !

*I know, a Japanese reference in the mix. Sorry.

t h e . k i l l i n g . f i e l d s

2011-12-08T09:14:00.000+01:00

Having a tiny vampire bedbug family nest in your bed... sucks. Big time. Three times Anticimex - the name actually means anti bedbug! - has been here, and my dears, I hope y'all dead now. Dead as doorknobs, whatever that means.

I indulged in some homemade visualization therapy:

The bugs make me feel as though we're fodder at a mini petting zoo.

My frazzled nerves.

So, in conclusion: Bedbugs equals frazzled nerves. (You follow me so far?) Or, the white serpentines could be Tintin exclamation twirls!

Since I can imagine you all must be wondering which my three all time most popular posts are, I've composed a list, exclusively for you!

Snow Whites (09.11.26)
Steichen (10.12.08)
Beautiful Science (11.03.20)

I think it's more the topic matter than my beautiful renditions that's made them so popular, plus Tumblrs like Black Medic and (She's a) universal emptiness picking up on Ernst Haeckel's dark art in Beautiful Science. Overall, posting pics by others will probably take you further than bedbug art, but hey, for each their own.

To cherish my Steichen post's popularity, I've added a link to Ray and Charles Eames film on Steichen and Polaroid SX70, via Vow. Enjoy!
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l i v i n g . i n . a . f u n . h o s e . d o n ' t . m a k e . y o u . n o . f u n n y

2011-12-07T09:32:00.000+01:00

This is one of my most regular outfits.

You're probably thinking: For staying at home?

And yes, that's what I want you to think.

My sloppy poses reminded me so much of the Breakfast Club dance scene that I quickly had to assemble a collage:

Watching the clip I realize that I still on some level want to channel John Bender's spirit. I realize you're supposed to wanna date him, not be him, but come on, compared to the other characters? The goth girl goes white - ! (White whispered. Because it's - so - wrong.)

l o v e

2011-12-05T01:32:00.001+01:00

As some of you may already know, the Glenn and I got married in July. We haven't had a wedding party or a wedding dinner or a honeymoon for that matter (a wedding night though, for sure). At least that was the state of things until Saturday when we finally held our wedding party masquerave at a music studio!!! Instead of going formal we went the absolute other way, and boy oh boy, was it ever the best. At moments I thought my heart might burst into clouds of confetti. The wee djs played live and Stagga, Komatrohn and Jeremy DJd. It seems romantic music sometimes is hard and loud. It was... brilliant.

Cynthia Stern and Stagga, pre-party raving.

Getting ready. I wanted to be a manga:esque bride, but the colour spray didn't turn my hair white and I forgot my wedding tiara at home. I did cut off my 40's kimono into a dress and let me tell you, that first snip with the scissors is the hardest.

The Glenn got a plastic snakeskin jacket and to our surprise people started quoting Nicholas Cage lines.

What does party pics really tell you? Usually it's photos of strangers getting drunk. Inspite of this, here are a few of our oh so lovely friends:

This last pic should work as a warning sign for kids: This is what it looks like when you should already be in bed. It's kinda awesome.

p i n k . s h i m m e r

2011-12-05T00:09:00.000+01:00

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Don't you think more things in life should be like cheap cheap glossy nail polish? My Pink Shimmer Pinterest board - this must be the adult equivalent of cute horsie teen magazines - keeps me warm during those grey everydays, because *** knows we all have those:

Pic links: Lisa O'Hara and Where the Lovely Things Are.

Pic links: Fine Ting og Sjokolade and Ktinka.de.

Pic links: Vow and Six Orange Carrots.

Pic links: Bawkbawkbawk and Sunken Treasure. (This is just some of the good stuff, there's lots more.)

Picture collecting is a good way to get to know yourself. It had passed me by that I was so into pink and shimmery stuff (now I'm all like OMG duh), and those cute cats and dogs, where do they come from? I also like Ninainvorm's blog post Oh no... Pinterest! from 21/10/11 (I can't seem to link straight to the post, just to a page, sorry!). Here be excerpts:

So in a way Pinterest is a bit like an oldfashioned scrapbook, where you collect all kinds of nice images that you've ripped from magazines and such, rid of their original context.

You can click on each image, which will lead you on the way a bit, but then still you will be searching and searching... It makes me feel a bit uncomfortable, cause I do feel that a good reference is important. On the other hand collecting all these beautiful images without really knowing where they originally came from is just a lot of fun.

Right? Right. So, thorough as I want to be, some of these pic links might not go deep enough. It's a balance between trying to be respectful and still getting something else done - we all like the chase, but we also like getting dinner, y'know.

g e t . i t . w h i l e . i t ' s . c o l d . o u t

2011-12-01T08:00:00.000+01:00

My blog is a Skerrie Things add for the remainder of the week - come Monday we're back to normal, I promise!

Since Christmas is acoming, surreal as it seems in the barren North (this is what it looked like this time last year!) I thought I'd give you a reminder of the Skerrie Things Christmas offers. Here we go:

Christmas Cards

Set of four, envelopes included

First one by one, and then en masse:

They are printed on 200g off-white art paper, so the cards are sturdy but have a frail feel to them:

9€ + shipping. Limited offer until December 15th.

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Moon Calendar for 2012

Describing the moon phases of the Northern hemisphere

Moon Calendar in size A4

Printed on 90g off-white art paper. Signed and unframed.

4.50€ + shipping or free with another purchase (the Christmas Cards excluded). Limited offer until December 15th 2012.

Get'em at Skerrie Things.

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We have so much planned for the next year - new features - new designers - new offers. The Glenn has found hidden gems from the deep input - output inc cellars, stuff you can't find anymore. But we'll save that - for next year.

And... as I mentioned yesterday, we're at Facebook.

Have a lovely weekend! Mine might just be... hard work and absolutely spectacular. I'll tell you all about it next week, promise.
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w h e n . l i g h t . w a s . a . w a y . o f . l i f e

2011-11-30T08:30:00.000+01:00

Believe it or not, but these pics were taken by moi in April 29th 2010, or a time I refer to as: When light still ruled the world. Ask that black bird, it can testify. The best thing to do these days is to snuggle up on the couch with a large piece of cheese and just forget.

Hey, pssst!

Did you know our shop Skerrie Things has a Facebook page? Come on and like us, we're looking for love!

And you know my secret page (alright I tell you - click the link right under the mountains, 'kay)? I've included some link love, maybe you're mentioned?

Alright, back to cheese.